


Izzy too

by Jackie Thomas (Jackie_Thomas)



Series: Izzy [2]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M, OMC point of view
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 21:53:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7009612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackie_Thomas/pseuds/Jackie%20Thomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tells us that Robbie’s surgery is difficult and complicated but he’s ‘holding his own’.  I think this is a kind way of saying he’s doing well just by not dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Izzy too

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place a year or so after the events of 'Izzy'. It stands alone but won't make much sense if you haven't read the first story and don't know who Izzy is.
> 
> For the very lovely Divingforstones. This is basically her fault for encouraging me.

I am regretting going the full Oscar Wilde with my outfit today. Apart from everyone at work telling me I look like the Child Catcher, I now can’t get anyone in the John Radcliffe to focus long enough to direct me to the ward I need. The Child Catcher doesn’t even wear an evening cape. 

I eventually find Inspector Hathaway in the waiting room of one of the surgical wards. He’s got blood splashed on his face and hands and he looks wild eyed and terrified. There is blood across the whole of the front of his shirt and jacket as well. 

“Iz,” he murmurs.

“What happened to Robbie?” I ask. Laura’s text just said ‘injured’.

“He’s been stabbed,” Inspector Hathaway says, swallowing hard, his eyes filling. 

“Shit.”

“In the abdomen.” He glances at me. “Stomach. We walked into it, I should have known –, I should have -“

“Is he going to be all right?”

“I don’t know. No one will tell me. He’s in surgery.”

My knees feel like they’re about to give way and I have to sit down on the nearest chair. I look at Inspector Hathaway’s shirt and realise how bad Robbie must have been hurt. Poor Inspector Hathaway. I imagine him trying to stop the wound from bleeding until an ambulance came and Robbie probably telling him it was nothing serious, just a scratch and not to worry. I’m not going to cry.

Just then Laura and Lizzie arrive together. Inspector Hathaway is on his feet the minute he sees Laura. She works in the hospital and knows all the doctors.

She shakes her head, “It’s too early, James. There’s no information.”

You can’t say anything worse to Inspector Hathaway. No information is the same as no oxygen to him.

“There’s not likely to be any news for a few hours yet, probably not until morning. You could go home or go and get some air.”

No chance.

He shakes his head, “I can’t.”

“We’ve arrested Prescott,” Lizzie says. By the way she says it, Prescott must be the one who did it. “And we found the knife. We’ve got two of the others; Green and Prescott’s brother, Darren, but we’re looking for Lindy.”

Inspector Hathaway nods, though I’m not sure he is really listening. 

Lizzie is carrying a sports bag. “I’ve been to your house, sir and brought you some clothes to change into. We should get your suit, anyway, in case it’s needed for forensics.”

“Go on, James,” Laura says, because he’s looking at Lizzie as if she’s speaking Martian. “Lyn’s coming, you can’t stay like that. Izzy will help you change.”

I will?

Lizzie hands me the holdall and a big evidence bag and tells me to put all of Inspector Hathaway’s clothes in it. All of them? I reckon this will go about as well as the time I tried to pull a thorn out of Monty’s paw. I had to get stitches and a tetanus injection.

I take off my evening cape, velvet jacket, embroidered waistcoat and top hat and go and collect Inspector Hathaway. Amazingly he lets me take his hand and lead him away. Definitely mellowed since getting all loved-up with Robbie. Definitely. 

When we find the gents, Inspector Hathaway wakes up a bit and starts emptying his pockets. Phone, keys, wallet, cigarettes, lighter, TS Eliot, evidence bags, gloves, notebook, pens, smelling salts and about twenty-five spare handkerchiefs. It’s amazing he always has such a clean line.

He takes off his jacket and folds it into the bag. Then he gets his tie off but his hands are too shaky for shirt buttons, so I do those. At first I think he’s been hurt too, but it is Robbie’s blood that seeped through his shirt. He says ‘leave it’ when I can’t get it all off with a wet handkerchief. He lets me wash the blood off his face and hands though and rinse out his wedding ring. When I think of where all the blood is from I feel sick.

There is underwear, jeans, T-shirt, hoodie and some trainers in the holdall and between us we get him changed. Then Inspector Hathaway starts this terrible shaking and I realise he is crying without any tears or making a sound. Anyway, I can’t help it, I hug him. He doesn’t kill me but keeps saying, “I can’t lose him.” 

He’s back to being Mr Iceman by the time we’re out in the waiting room again.

“Thanks for doing that,” Laura says, taking me aside. “Are you all right to stay with him? He shouldn’t be on his own.”

“’Course I’m staying.”

“Thank goodness for you, Izzy.” She gives me a peck on the cheek and I see her eyes welling up too. She gestures to my hat, “Is it the Artful Dodger?”

“He didn’t have a cape, Laura.”

Lizzie says, “I thought it was Phantom of the Opera.” Cheeky mare.

Laura gives Inspector Hathaway a long hug, “I’ve got to go and finish something up but I’ll be back in an hour or so. I’ll see if I can find anything out then.”

“Please,” he says, though I don’t see how he’s going to survive a whole hour on no information.

Lizzie goes too and me and Inspector Hathaway sit next to each other in the poky little waiting room for absolutely ever. I go and get us tea but he doesn’t move, he doesn’t even go for a smoke. He just watches; his eyes following everyone who walks by the room.

I want to distract him so I start to tell him about all my earliest memories of Robbie and how I used to follow him around when I was little.

“Me too,” Inspector Hathaway says.

“When mum got in trouble and I had to wait at the police station for nan, first chance I got I used to go and see if Robbie was around. When I was really little I hid under his desk and played with these toy cars he kept for me. I think they used to be Mark’s. Sometimes he would hand down a jelly baby or a Toffo. I used to have to keep really quiet though because if I didn’t Chief Inspector Morse would roar at us.”

“I forgot you knew Morse,” Inspector Hathaway says. “I would have liked to have met him.”

“Yeah, he was nice.”

“That’s a fairly unique perspective.”

“He always looked as if he was remembering something sad, but he was all right. He could be really rude though. I mean Team GB, Olympic standard rude. And he didn’t care who he was talking to. Robbie was pretty much the only one who could put up with him for more than five minutes.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“That’s not true. Loads of people love you.”

“You didn’t know me before Robbie came back.” 

“I did. I mean, I wasn’t round the nick so much when I was older but there was that one time you sat with me for ages at the front desk when they couldn’t get hold of nan.”

“You remember that? You were only ten or eleven.”

It would be too pathetic to admit I always remember people who are kind to me, so I just say, “I thought you were a giant, I’m not likely to forget a giant.”

I’m glad I make him laugh. 

“There was some kind of fight going on at the front desk,” he says. “You asked me if it was all to do with your mother. As if you assumed it would be.”

“It usually was.”

“How did you survive what happened to you, Izzy?” He asks. “You don’t ever let it drag you back.”

I shrug. I’m not sure I did survive, I’m just good at making out I did. I don’t have a picture locked in a secret room, like in the book I’m reading, but I reckon I’ve got one folded away in my heart somewhere. 

“It must be nice, the way policeman all go round in pairs,” I say. I’d been thinking of Robbie and Chief Inspector Morse and Robbie and him. “It’s like being assigned a best mate.” 

“Depends who you get paired up with. I’ve driven an inspector or two to drink, in my time. Traumatised a sergeant quite recently.”

I know he ain’t even joking.

“Not many are as lucky as I was,” he says and looks like he’s going to cry again.

I wasn’t as surprised as everyone else was that Robbie and Inspector Hathaway worked together for so long because I knew, when you come down to it, they’re both the same, both lovely. I was surprised when I noticed they were actually in love with each other, especially with Robbie being ancient. I’m not sure they would have ever got round to doing anything about it, they’re both so shy about that sort of thing. That was all my doing, I got them together. And that’s why I got to be one of the witnesses at the wedding.

Laura comes back when she’s finished work. She tells us that Robbie’s surgery is difficult and complicated but he’s ‘holding his own’. I think this is a kind way of saying he’s doing well just by not dying.

Lyn is the next person to arrive. She’s in a right state because she’s had a nightmare drive from Manchester and had to bring Jack because Tim’s in Scotland. Inspector Hathaway doesn’t say anything but puts his arms around her until she calms down. That’s a voluntary hug, I’ll have to tell Robbie.

Then Lyn and Laura start talking in doctor language while Jack sits on my lap and plays with my hat. When Lyn’s got all the information she decides she is going to Robbie and Inspector Hathaway’s house to put Jack to bed and wait for Tim. She takes Jack from me and tells me she likes my cape, which I’ve put back on for warmth.

“I thought you’d finished with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde,” she says. She’s the closest so far.

Lyn was the other witness at the wedding and we went shopping to choose our outfits together. That’s when I got my vintage blue velvet jacket which is easily the best thing I own. For a laugh, we convinced Robbie we’d bought identical bridesmaid dresses. All he did was roll his eyes and say we were one as daft as the other and had we checked with James. I honestly think Robbie wouldn’t have minded if I turned up at his wedding in a dress. As long as Inspector Hathaway was happy, he would just accept it. Inspector Hathaway said he wouldn’t even have noticed. He doesn’t care about clothes; he just looks straight through them into your soul.

Robbie is pretty much the coolest person in the world. He was straight for a hundred years and then just woke up and married a bloke. There were people at the nick who came to the wedding convinced it was a wind up, some of them still don’t believe it. 

And he took me in when I’d gone really seriously wrong. He didn’t throw me out when I betrayed him either. Even I thought he should have. He was all, ‘everyone makes mistakes’. And I don’t know for sure but I reckon he paid for mum’s cremation, which is just insane. I’m paying him back in gardening but it would have to be the Botanic to get anywhere near what I owe.

Laura curls up in one of the seats opposite and gets her book out. Despite trying to send Inspector Hathaway home, she’s planning to stay herself. Then Lizzie arrives having arrested the last person who was in the house when Robbie got stabbed. She’s brought coffee, KitKats and sandwiches that Tony made and she’s not going anywhere either. 

As the hours go by Laura falls fast asleep and Lizzie does stuff on her phone and comes and goes. Jean comes for a while to speak to Inspector Hathaway and then she goes.

At one point I accidentally fall asleep. I drop off against Inspector Hathaway’s arm. When I wake up I find myself under his arm, sort of being held against him so I don’t slide off. 

“Oh God, sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s all right, you can sleep,” he says quietly. “Nothing’s happening.”

I want to stay awake, though, to keep him company and to make sure he doesn’t suddenly flip out and demand a status report from the lady pushing a mop down the corridor. I go back to leaning my head on his arm and he doesn’t seem to mind.

This is why it would be a disaster for him if he loses Robbie. There was a time, if this had happened, I might as well have fallen asleep against the side of a cliff. Being a bit outside the human race myself, I can see he is too. I spot the outsider in him just as he spotted it in me. I don’t know what happened to him, but I reckon it was bad. It is Robbie that keeps him connected to the normals. 

“You’re enjoying The Picture of Dorian Gray?” He asks. 

“Yeah, it’s well creepy.”

“The outfit suits you.”

I knew he’d get it, “Not when everyone thinks I’m Jack the Ripper.”

“Thanks for staying with me,” he says. “You’re keeping me sane. It will mean a lot to Robbie, if I get a chance to tell him.”

“As if I’d go anywhere. Chief bridesmaid here.”

“If you had a picture in your attic, Iz, it would look exactly like you.”

It takes me a while to work it out but then I realise this is a really nice thing to say.

“But with hat hair.” I have to be honest.

After a while it is Inspector Hathaway’s turn to start fighting off sleep, his head bobbing up and down. I swear to him I’ll wake him if there’s any news and he finally agrees to stretch out and doze for a bit. I put my cape over him, remembering how he gave me his jacket that time when I was little. I think he even gets a couple of hours sleep.

We only know it is morning because a tiny bit of light comes in from the skylight at the top of the wall. Laura wakes up and looks at her watch.

“Right,” she says and goes off to see what’s what.

She returns with a lady called Dr Gupta who looks like she could do with a couple of hours’ kip herself. I shake Inspector Hathaway’s shoulder and he is instantly awake. All of us just stare at Dr Gupta waiting for news. I suddenly understand what they mean in books when they say, ‘cold with fear’.

xxx

Later, when I finish my lunchtime shift, which I’m basically asleep for, I go back to the hospital. In honour of Robbie, I’m wearing my Midnight Addiction T-shirt. This is much simpler than the whole business of being a Victorian dandy. It takes so long to get dressed in the morning, it’s a wonder any of them found time for debauchery. 

Robbie is on a ward with Lyn and Inspector Hathaway. Only two visitors at a time are allowed so I wait outside with Tim and Jack. 

But I peek in and I see Robbie. He is awake and smiling though he’s connected to bags and things and looking knackered. He is talking to Lyn on one side. Inspector Hathaway is on his other side. He’s got his head bowed and Robbie’s hand is in his hair. I realise, this is what I’ve been waiting for since last night. To see them together, so I know there is at least one good thing in the world.

 

End

May 2016


End file.
